Today the UN published it’s report on biodiversity. It is a report that is truly frightening.
‘Compiled by 145 expert authors from 50 countries over the past three years, with inputs from another 310 contributing authors, the Report assesses changes over the past five decades, providing a comprehensive picture of the relationship between economic development pathways and their impacts on nature. It also offers a range of possible scenarios for the coming decades.’
It paints a picture of decline of plant and animal diversity across the world as mankind impacts on all the major habitats. Seas, lakes and rivers are overfished and polluted. Land is cleared for agriculture and sprayed with chemicals. Mammals are hunted for meat, ivory or trophies. Logging, mining and intensive farming; pollution, urbanisation and industrialisation take their toll. Climate change and overgrazing, draining of wetlands and the destruction of breeding grounds are all taking their toll.
What was once plentiful is now rare. 75% of the land mass has been impacted by mankind. 85% of our wetlands have already gone. 57% of our rainforest has been cut down. The human population is soaring to 8 billion – all of whom need food, water, housing, infrastructure, goods and space.
We are in the process of cutting off the very things that keep us alive- the plants and animals that maintain the soil, pollinate the plants, recycle our water and produce the oxygen we breathe.
This is not sustainable. Our greed and constant lust for expansion is destroying nature and will destroy us.
How long can the deniers continue to doubt the massive evidence that is piling up?
Unless we start to take this seriously and take major steps to put it right we will destroy everything that makes life so beautiful. We are in the process of slitting our own throats in order to own a bunch of trinkets. The consumer society and sheer numbers of humans will kill us all.
Surely this is the most important issue of all?